Bonds Beyond Borders

How Friendship Differs Across Cultures

Photo by Womanizer Toys on Unsplash

This is a paid-subscriber-only post. Thank you for supporting my work. Born Without Borders is possible because of you.

In part one, we uncovered which cultures adopt more communal sharing, authority ranking, equality-matching, and market pricing. We understand that all four can happen within one culture during a single event. And we know why asking my dad for chore money was a bad idea.

The degree to which we adhere to the four elementary forms of relationships parallels two self-concepts: Independent and interdependent.

Independent self-concept = Western individuals (mostly) expressing how unique they are while making decisions based on what they want, even if they conflict with the expectations of their social groups.

This sounds a bit selfish, but it’s also reflected in one of my favourite hip-hop songs.